One Thing To Live For
by Iceman Bobby Drake
Summary: Set directly after X2 Bobby Drake has lost his family, his mother, father, and brother turned away from him because of his powers. Lower than he's ever thought possible, he considers suicide. BobbyRogue


Humans need time to mourn. It is never healthy for one to bottle all of their emotions up inside. There are times when one needs to face the thing that is causing them pain and sadness, and cry as hard as they need to, for as long as the tears will fall. There are times when only after they've let go of the emotions can they begin to heal. Mutants are no different in this.

It was many days before Bobby Drake had a chance to face what had happened to him at his parents house. The days following it were a whirlwind of action--Ororo and Jean picked them up in the jet and they went straight to Alkali Lake, where tensions were high as they didn't know if the X-Men would make it out alive. Being chased by missiles, and Rogue falling out of the plane. Jon's complete betrayal, which Bobby took not only very hard but extremely personally as well. And then there was Jean's death, which had hurt them all in so many ways--including seeing its effect on Scott, who Bobby had looked up to since he'd come to the school, and had never seen less than completely composed. Seeing him break down and become a shadow of the man he'd been had had its effect on Bobby as well. It seemed like everyone around him was falling apart, or falling away from him.

When they returned to the school, Bobby was exhausted. He blocked his emotions from his mind, and at the first opportunity went to his room and fell asleep. Because he slept all afternoon, he woke up around eleven in the dark and couldn't go back to sleep. That was when he started to think. He laid in bed for hours, and the more he thought, the worse he began to feel.

He alternated in those hours between anger and sadness, at times feeling anger and resentment burning in his chest at the thought of his family's rejection and John's betrayal, only to find that burning anger replaced by the most heart-wrenching hollow feeling in his chest, as though his heart were physically feeling the emotion strain he felt. At those times, Bobby laid there in his bed, in his empty room with John's belongings still on his bed and desk across the room, and Bobby cried. He had never sobbed so hard in his life--at times he found it difficult to breath. His spirit was completely broken.

It was that night that, for the first time in his life, Bobby seriously considered ending his life. It is impossible for one to understand the anguish felt by someone who has been rejected by their own mother and father, the two most important people in their world, unless one has had it happen to them firsthand. And this, along with all of the other weight that seemed to press on Bobby's shoulders as he thought of it all. It seemed like too much for him to bear on his own.

On his own. He was on his own. No family. Alone.

Anger took over his brain, his heart, his entire body once again--And he sat up, thoughts racing through his brain. He'd do it. What if he snuck into his house in the middle of some black night and just...He rose from his bed and went to his desk. They'd find him on the family room floor, right where they'd all but killed him two days ago. As he sat, he turned on the small desklamp beside him as he fumbled for his notebook. He'd leave a letter, so there was no doubt in their minds why he'd done it. He opened his notebook and grabbed a pen, his stomach churning in a way that would normally signal he was about to be sick. He began to write, all the while seeing the paper and the words he wrote blurrily and distortedly through his tear-filled eyes. All of his most bitter feelings came out of his pen as he guided it across the lines, like a flood that, once started, could not be stopped.

ib"Mr. and Mrs. Drake, and Ronnie Drake,

I'm sorry I came back. I'm sorry I didn't just disappear forever so you could forget you had two sons. But this is the last time I'll bother you.

Think of it this way: Having no son at all is better than having a mutant son, right? No dirty family secrets to keep hidden from all your friends anymore, Mom and Dad. Because there's no way you can hide this.

Don't let your self-pity get the best of you. You don't deserve to wish that none of this had happened to you, or to even think of how awful this is for you through any of this. You should have known better than to think that you could turn your backs on me and go on with your happy lives while I lost almost everything I ever had. You are my family, my flesh and blood. You had no right to turn on me.

Don't arrange a funeral. I've written to the headmistress of Xavier's and asked her to hold the service there. If you want to go, call her and get the date and time. I want my funeral done by the people who never turned their backs on me. I'll be buried there. It will be mostly mutants at the services--And if you don't treat them with the most respect you've ever shown anyone in your lives, I swear that if it's possible I will haunt you for the rest of your lives. They are better people than you have ever been.

Take how you're feeling right now, and remember it. I'd say it's pretty safe to say that it's exactly how I felt in the days after you kicked me out and disowned me. Except I lost three people. You're just losing one. And the big difference is, you did this to yourself.

I never thought I'd be saying these terrible things to you. But I never thought I'd see the day when I'd want to kill myself, either. I never thought my own family would ever make me feel this much pain.

If you learn anything from this, through the sorrow and the guilt, please learn that this is what comes from hatred and fear. You are no better than any mutant alive simply because you are 'normal'. Mutants are not something to fear. All you ought to fear is fear itself.

I will always love you."/i/b

Bobby's hand shook so terribly by the time he reached the end of the letter that his last few lines had become scrawled chicken scratch. His hand rested on the paper, his pen poised above the blank space at the bottom of the page where he would sign his name. He stared at the blank line as he sobbed, head bent, his breathing ragged. Finally the pen slid from his hands, falling onto the paper with a barely audible noise.

He couldn't do it. It was like signing his death. It iwas/i signing his death. And for all the grief, he was terrified of the thought of death, in that moment when it had become a true consideration. He held his head with both hands and let himself cry. His body soon wracked with sobs. He couldn't think; nothing in his head made sense. It was all of his anguish echoing around inside his head, painful thoughts overlapping one another and competing over which thought would make the next tear fall. It was misery of intensity that Bobby Drake had never felt before.

In the midst of the chaos, one clear thought rose above the rest. It was an image more than a thought, and it gave Bobby something to focus on, to block out the rest. The image he saw was of a young woman, with a contagious grin and one streak of white in her long, dark hair.

In all his self-pitying, he had blocked out any positive thoughts, as people are prone to do in such a state. But the moment he saw her in his mind, his anger drained from his body. Something subconsciously told him that he needed to focus on that image of Rogue. And so he thought only of her, sitting completely immobile until all of the other thoughts faded away.

Minutes passed before he was able to form a clear thought. And when he did, it was firm and true--the only thing Bobby felt that he knew without a doubt anymore. 'I won't do that to her'. He wanted his parents to feel guilt that could never be forgotten. He wanted John to feel regret that would never heal. But Rogue didn't deserve any of that. And if Bobby killed himself, everyone would be left to pick up the pieces, not only the people who had hurt him.

Their relationship had been faltering lately. But he loved her. Call it teenage puppy love if you will, but he truly felt that he loved her with all of his heart. And right then, she was the only person in the world who, if asked, would have said that they loved ihim/i. That was what he needed to remember. He was not alone, not as long as he had Rogue.

He stood up and ripped the paper from it's place in his notebook. Pushing back his chair, he turned and made his way to the door in the dim light that washed from the small lamp. He opened his door and shut it behind him, making his way from there to the stairs and up into the library. It was empty. Not many people made a habit of reading at two in the morning. The light of the moon fell through the large floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of the room, providing Bobby with enough light to find the shredder by the computers. He stuck the sheet of notebook paper in it, and the room filled with the mechanical grinding sound as the paper was chewed up into shreds.

Bobby turned and cast his eyes out the windows. Moonlight fell on the grass in front of the school, on the gardens to either side and the trees farther off. On the fountains and the drive that wound out of sight underneath the trees. And as he looked out at the beauty of this place, the place which was a safe haven and a refuge for mutants with nowhere else to go, mutants like him, he felt calm. It wasn't the automatic, forced calm he'd felt for the last two days. It was a peace that warmed his entire body, even his still-aching chest and his face which ached from hours spent crying.

He was wrong, in thinking that he didn't have a home. It was right there, right where he stood. It wasn't his own, and it wasn't what he had known all of his life--But it was a home for him. And he had a family of sorts--One that took him as he was, which was more than he would ever have with his flesh-and-blood family. He belonged, and he had reasons to live that even tragedy could not disprove.

Turning from the window, Bobby walked to the stairs. He would try to go back to sleep--He was feeling tired already. And in the morning, he would find Rogue, and he would tell her something that, by telling himself, had saved his life For the first time, he would tell her he loved her.


End file.
